Calcarea Silicata — Homeopathic Remedy Profile

Calcarea silicata is the silicate of lime, a mineral trituration whose picture Kent and Boericke place among the deepest-acting remedies of the materia medica. It stands beside Silica and Calcarea Carbonica in the family of chilly, weak, slow-to-develop constitutions, yet the image is its own. Remove or rephrase the second occurrence. In the Essence section the sentence could become something like: "The organism generates no surplus heat and cannot retain what the body makes." Being overheated aggravates as sharply as being chilled. The mental picture darkens toward muttering, fear of brain lesion, and dreams of the dead.

At a Glance

Source and Preparation

Calcium silicate, prepared by trituration. Boericke, Clarke and Kent are the principal sources for the classical picture. Ussher introduced low potencies (1x, 6x) in atrophy of children and in corneal disorders where Silica had failed, a finding compiled by the classical sources. Kent worked chiefly at the higher scale, where he credited the remedy with goitre. What acts is the dynamic preparation, prescribed on the totality of the case; the mineral trituration is the material starting point, not what the practitioner administers at 30C and above.

The Essence of Calcarea Silicata

The remedy belongs to complaints that come on slowly and reach their final form after long periods. The organism is not overwhelmed by a sudden shock. It wears down. Vital heat is lacking. The patient is cold all the time: hands, feet, the back of the neck, the sacrum, the head itself at occiput and vertex. Overheat this patient and the state worsens. Leave them in a draft and it worsens likewise. Change of weather, cold and wet weather, becoming cold after being warm, being warm and then chilled — imperfect thermoregulation in an organism that cannot generate or hold its own heat.

Emaciation runs through the picture. Discharge runs through it too: thick, greenish-yellow, offensive, from the ears, from the chest, from ulcers, from catarrhal surfaces. The nails have ceased to grow. Milk is suppressed. Menses are absent, scanty, irregular. Wherever the organism should be building, it fails to build. Wherever it should be closing, it discharges. Weakness follows the least exertion, and the mornings are the worst hours. These self-expressions of the organism form one coherent image: an organism whose self-governing principle no longer holds vital heat, no longer nourishes, no longer closes.

Clinical Portrait

Mind and Temperament

The mental image is the clearest entry to the remedy. The patient is absent-minded, cannot concentrate, wakes confused in the morning. Mood is despondent. She is discouraged about her illness, thinks it incurable, is afraid of the state of her body. Anxiety about health is central, and one specific fear stands out in the classical picture: fear of brain lesion. Self-confidence is lacking. Consolation irritates. Anger comes easily, and the state is worse after it.

Further into the picture the ground falls away. She sits long in one place and stares. She does not answer when spoken to. Passive delirium may appear, with talking and acting as though insane. She talks to people who have long been dead. She mutters foolish things. Dreams of the dead recur, along with dreams of death, murder, disease, fire. An organism whose self-governing principle is retreating from waking life still speaks, unbidden, to what is no longer there.

Head and Face

Coldness at occiput and vertex is characteristic. Congestion of the head appears at night. Perspiration wets the whole scalp. Eruptions crust it: eczema, pustules. During the headache the face flushes with circumscribed red cheeks against an otherwise pale, earthy complexion. Lips are bluish, dry, cracked.

Eyes

The eye picture carries much of the remedy's historical reputation. Corneal exudation is absorbed by it. Low potencies were used to clear ulcers whose edges were punched out and to open eyelids agglutinated with pus. Kent placed cataracts on the list of its cures. lacrimation, along with paralysis of the optic nerve in the deepest cases.

Digestion

Slow. Bowels sluggish, liver slow, abdomen distended after eating with much rumbling and fullness. Anxiety is felt in the stomach itself, with a sinking sensation at the pit and coldness there when empty. Heartburn, hiccup, belching. Vomiting may bring up bile, food, mucus, watery matter, and in serious cases black blood. Great thirst runs alongside aversion to food, meat and milk in particular.

Rectum

Extreme constipation with inactivity of the rectum. The stool is difficult and the rectum feels paralysed. Constriction of the anus appears, and in chronic cases stricture. Fistula in ano is on the clinical list. diarrhea Dysentery with scanty, bloody stools may occur when the process decompensates.

Chest and Lungs

Breathing is difficult, sometimes asthmatic. Chronic irritation of the air passages runs on for months. The cough carries the constitutional signature: coldness, weakness, emaciation, worse from cold air. Expectoration is copious, greenish-yellow, sometimes bloody. Coughs of tubercular subjects are among the classical indications. Hemorrhage

Limbs and Back

Muscles, tendons and joints are weak and easily strained. Stiffness of all the limbs and joints. Heaviness. Cramps in hands, calves, feet, soles, toes. Gouty nodosities. The back feels cold. The neck is stiff. The spine is sore to touch. Hard aching in the back on rising from a seat is a marker. Nails cease to grow. Cracked hands and fingers persist through the winter.

Skin

Cold, blue, very sensitive. Dry, burning skin, unable to perspire; after scratching the burning worsens. Pimples, comedones, wens, eczema, herpes. Liver spots. Warts painful and hard. The organism's failure to close and to nourish shows on the surface: neither perspiring cleanly nor healing cleanly. In vitiligo the remedy takes its place among the constitutionally chilly, emaciated cases with thick catarrhal discharges rather than as a first-line agent for the depigmented patch alone.

Female and Male

In women, menses are absent, suppressed, or painful and irregular; flow may appear between periods. Leucorrhea The uterus is heavy, prone to prolapse. The labia and vagina may ulcerate. Nipples excoriate. Milk is suppressed or absent. In men the prostate is enlarged and tender; prostatic fluid escapes on straining at stool; the testes are indurated, with hydrocele, and the genitals produce a foul sweat.

Modalities

Worse:

• Change of weather; passing from warm to cold; cold air; becoming cold; cold, wet weather
• Being overheated (a marked aggravation, and part of the picture)
• Exertion; motion; after sex
• Morning; on waking

Better:

• Even temperature; avoidance of drafts; rest. The source is otherwise largely silent on ameliorations, and it is honest to say so.

A Clinical Note

In practice the remedy is met not in the acute prescription but in the chronic case that has failed to move. A child brought back a third time, perhaps: chilly, wasted, catching colds constantly, with a discharge that is always the same thick greenish-yellow. Silica has been given and has done something, but the child stops there. The mother says the child sits long, does not answer, is anxious in a way she cannot put into words. The nails are ridged and no longer growing out. Ussher's finding that this preparation succeeds in atrophy of children where Silica has failed is the pointer at that moment.

Relationships

Compare: Arsenicum Album, Tuberculinum, Baryta Carbonica, Iodum for chilliness, emaciation and slow decline. Fluoric acid and Lapis albus for the deeper constitutional and glandular indications named by Kent.

Its closest neighbour in temperament is Silica; the divergences are the paradoxical aggravation from being overheated, the deeper mental picture (muttering, talking to the dead, fear of brain lesion), and the marked periodicity that runs through many of its symptoms. Baryta Carbonica and glandular hardness in children, Calcarea silicata belongs to arrest and wasting after the child has already grown a little, in a temperament more anxious than dependent.

Clinical Uses

Atrophy of Children Who Fail to Thrive

Chilly, emaciated children with an inherited tuberculous background, catching cold constantly, thick greenish-yellow discharges, who have not moved on Silica. Low potencies (1x, 6x) are the historical starting point in this indication; higher potencies are used on the totality of the case.

Corneal Ulcers and Cataracts

Ulcers with punched-out edges. Corneal exudation requiring absorption. Eyelids agglutinated with pus. The beginning of cataract in the chilly, weakly patient. Kent placed cataract cures on record.

Chronic Catarrhs and Coughs

Long-standing catarrh of nose and posterior sinus with hard yellow crusts. Chronic irritation of the air passages. The cough of the emaciated, tubercular, easily chilled patient, with copious greenish-yellow expectoration.

Chronic Constipation with Rectal Inactivity

Extreme constipation. Paralysed feeling in the rectum. Constriction of the anus, and in some cases stricture, fistula in ano. The picture is not a spasm but an exhaustion of the rectum, matching the general lack of vital force.

Anxiety about Health with Fear of Brain Lesion

The mental indication proper. A patient convinced the disease is incurable, fearful of something within the head, discouraged, wearied by their own condition, worse after anger, irritated by consolation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Calcarea Carbonica in both FAQ occurrences

Calcarea carb belongs to fat, damp chilliness with sweat about the head and desire for eggs. Silica to nervous exhaustion in patients who lack grit. Calcarea silicata lies deeper than both. Emaciation rather than obesity. Worse from being overheated. A mental picture that reaches into muttering, absent-mindedness and dreams of the dead. Ussher found that it succeeds in atrophy of children where Silica had failed, and Kent placed his weight on it in the chronic case that had exhausted the shorter-acting remedies.

In what potencies is it prescribed?

Low potencies (1x, 6x) were used historically in atrophy and corneal disorders. Kent worked at the higher scale. The classical source names trituration and all potencies as the historical range; contemporary prescribing on the totality of the case most often begins at 30C and above.

Is Calcarea silicata a first-line remedy for vitiligo?

Not as a rule. It earns its place in vitiligo when the patient shows the whole constitution: chilly, emaciated, catching cold constantly, thick greenish-yellow discharges, the characteristic mental picture. The white patch is one expression of a wider state, and the prescription follows the state, not the sign in isolation.

Is there any safety concern with the substance itself?

Calcium silicate is a mineral without a distinct herbal-drug register. The dosimetric caution that applies to plant remedies at Ø and low decimals has no analogue here. Classical prescribing at 30C and above works throughout on the dynamic preparation, and the material substance is not present in the pill.

References

• Boericke, W. Pocket Manual of Homoeopathic Materia Medica.
• Clarke, J. H. A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica.
• Kent, J. T. Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica.
• Murphy, R. Nature's Materia Medica, Calcarea silicata entry (compiling Boericke, Clarke and Kent).